


dripping like honey

by WingsOfTime



Series: ikael [21]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Gen, Talking, ikael has feewings too but theyre his usual ones, thancred has feewings, will definitely contain shb spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 10:55:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20777414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingsOfTime/pseuds/WingsOfTime
Summary: Sweet, although he expects it to be bitter.(Thancred's thoughts during Shadowbringers, towards himself, Ikael, and himself and Ikael.)





	dripping like honey

**Author's Note:**

> contains strong reference to chapter 93 of moments, and a little of chapter 94 and some general stuff i've mentioned in post-shb writes i mostly forget now. but reading all that isn't necessary! (although i HIGHLY recommend at least chap 93) :>

Minfilia mentions one night that he talks about Ikael a lot. Thancred's tale pauses abruptly, its end dangling into the blankness of surprised silence. She looks contrite, apologies hesitantly and then once again, when he does not say anything. He waves it off, the frown marring his brow one more of confusion than annoyance.

“We did spend a lot of time together,” he tells her. “We were—are close, I suppose is what I’m saying.”

Curiosity sparks in her unnatural eyes. He can tell she wants to pry, and considers for a moment whether to brush her off. But Ikael shares half of their past, and _he_ has no

And Thancred does not see why he cannot elaborate on his part, of course. After all, knowledge of Ikael is a thing commonly passed around between them and the Exarch in their plans for liberating Norvrandt. There is no harm in spreading some more.

Surely enough, Minfilia’s wriggling queries get the better of her. “How did the two of you meet? You never told me,” bursts out. She presses her lips together immediately afterwards, but does not take the question back.

Thancred glances at their fire. The dancing flames conjure an image of Ifrit, of heat, of mistakes… No. What was that Ikael used to tell him about associations? Think about something else, something related. Slowly move away from the initial thought until it is no more.

“He grew up in a desert,” he begins. “Miqo’te—that is what mystel are called back home—usually live in tribes…”

~*~

Thancred does not know whether or not he should be thinking about how soon he is going to see Ikael again. So he does not, of course, instead pushing any thoughts of a reunion behind his much more pressing concern of how to ensure Minfilia’s foolhardiness does not get her recaptured by Eulmore. It is not just Ikael, anyways, he reasons; he has not seen the twins for an equal amount of time. He half-heartedly wonders whether five years is long enough for the minute differences in their faces to bend and twist back into exact likeness for him.

Hopefully not. Thancred doesn’t quite fancy the thought of being bad at his job.

Too soon, it is time for action, and too soon, Ikael is standing before him. Thancred’s first thought upon seeing him—well, the first thought that is actually about _Ikael_—is that he looks a little…

Gaunt.

Tired, would be a better-fitting word, if a simpler one. Weary. Thancred gets more opportunity to glance at him as they run from Ran’jit for what he is sure will not be the last time, and notes that Ikael is still fighting fit. But his hair is too long, his eyes sunken. He simply… looks as if he should be taking bet

As if he is not taking good enough care of himself. From a purely practical standpoint, Ikael is… falling somewhat short of standard.

Finally, they catch a breath in which to talk. Thancred spins round to find Ikael staring at him with a most peculiar expression and pose, as if he is pushing himself forward and holding himself back at the same time. But Thancred does not let his own gaze linger, casting it over the twins as well.

When time comes to speak of their plans, he turns to Minfilia with a sharp word, frustration bitter on his tongue. He should not, perhaps, but he does. Because he (because he had nearly _lost her—_) would have had to rescue her from Eulmore _again_, and it would have been nigh impossible (–again, _once_ _again_, he had nearly _lost her—_) and they do not have _time_ for five more years, godsdammit.

Ikael visibly bristles at his reprimand, and all but interrupts him to stride to Minfilia and lean down in front of her, cutting off her shaky apology.

“Hey,” he says, voice soft and gentle like he has no right to be in such a place and time as this. “Hey, it’s okay. Thancred is just being a bully—don’t listen to him.”

Irrational anger and sourness rise in Thancred's throat like bile. (There is fear, too, dripping acrid like poison.) Then Minfilia’s face crumples, and he fe

Ikael doesn’t—_he has no right to_—he is not—

Chittering pixies break his thoughts. For all that they are a nuisance, Thancred almost welcomes the interruption. It gives him an excuse to stop himself, to wrap his fingers around his heart and squeeze them into a tight fist until it is all but strangled.

~*~

Embracing Ikael again is—shocking. Not in the sense of being any sort of surprise, but rather in the way a bucketful of cold water to the face is. Thancred finds himself taking it in separately and all at once, every sense tripping over another. Ikael smells like grass and baked sweets and sweat and dirt and his hair—feels greasy, needs to be washed, is sticking to his ears his arms are smaller than Thancred remembers, his grip not as strong or perhaps it is the armour or perhaps both and has he always been this short? This thin?

Thancred doesn’t remember him being this… diminutive.

Ikael shoots him an uneasy smile, trepidation in every millimetre of it and clear in his eyes. They are wet, too, something sad and hesitant and altogether resigned mismatching the smile he puts on and the jovial tone he is wearing like a costume. He looks lon

Thancred matches the idea Ikael is trying so desperately to have picked up. “I must say, I did miss your relentless optimism,” he murmurs, and he lets something leak through his voice, just the smallest crack in the stone skin around his heart.

“I missed all of you,” Ikael confesses. Immediately, he looks as if he regrets it, and he swallows and averts his gaze. His shoulders slide lower, fractionally, tense but loose in their honesty. Thancred—

—thinks about the spark he had seen in Ikael’s eyes when he had spoken sharply to Minfilia earlier. The shift of something, almost like anger, almost like fury. But now he is not… Thancred does not understand. Is Ikael angry with him, or not? Has he cast his judgement and found him wanting, as Thancred had so easily assumed, or is he—is this quiet, slumped little figure in front of him his bare, honest truth?

Thancred takes a chance. (What else does he have to lose by now?)

He reaches up to squeeze Ikael’s shoulder. The gesture is achingly familiar, from the flesh of his palm settling against the joint to his fingers curling over and brushing a (too) sharp shoulder blade. It ekes out more from Thancred's walled heart, strikes with a chisel until it bleeds but a few droplets.

Ikael looks up almost jarringly quickly, clearly startled. His eyes go wide enough that Thancred can see the entirety of his pupils, choked in specks of uneven green.

“Later,” Thancred promises, because he _does_ want to talk. He does want—aches for, he will not admit—the whispers and the embraces and the swelling of hearts that they cannot do here, now. He has missed his friends dearly—has missed _Ikael_ dearly, because gods know he can never feel anything halfway and leave it be.

His eyes dart around. “But for now…” They can’t.

Pixie chores.

~*~

The night they come back from the Rak’tika Greatwood, Ikael stumbles into Thancred's room and collapses in his arms.

He starts crying, blubbering, panicking. Thancred gets over his surprise speedily, unfreezing and dragging Ikael over to sit down so he will not choke. This he remembers how to do, the calming down and the grounding. He makes Ikael breathe with him and count, two, three, four, five. Back down again. In again, up to six this time. Out.

Ikael’s panicked vomit of thought about tempering, Hydaelyn, Zodiark, the Echo, and whatever else that _damned_ Ascian has poisoned his mind with eventually slows into decipherable words, and then into mumbles, and then into hiccups. Thancred keeps counting their breaths, until and past the moment Ikael begins to do so as well.

Ikael’s hand curls against his chest and then spreads, slow but not hesitant. This takes Thancred by surprise as much as the very fact that Ikael had come to him to seek comfort in the first place. He knows why he does this with his hand, it is not that—(to feel his heartbeat, to feel his life)—but the fact that he… that he still _trusts_…

Ikael’s hand falls downwards and away, and Thancred is about to scoff at himself before he leans forward and replaces it with his forehead. Then he closes his eyes, and his shoulders sag. In comfort. In relief.

But Thancred has not… earned this trust. Ikael is… Why would he… ?

Tentatively, he settles an arm around Ikael’s shoulders. It is enough to feel the warmth of his presence, he tells himself. That Ikael would want comfort is normal, and perhaps the only _abnormal_ thing is Thancred's doubt of whom he will ask for it from. But would Ikael really… ?

Thancred casts his thoughts back to their conversation in the Nu Mou village. _You come first, _Ikael had said._ Before anyone or anything else._

Thancred had known at th

Thancred _knows_ know that that must have been at the very least a kind lie. Because Ikael would not… He…

Ikael tilts his head upwards. His eyes lock onto Thancred's, and they are wet, but drenched doubly in gratefulness and sincerity.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

And then he smiles, and it is so sweet that for a moment Thancred can almost convince himself that he _knows._ Thancred’s doubts. His heart.

But he cannot.

Right?

~*~

It is the disappointment, Thancred thinks, that tugs at him the most.

The anger he can deal with, has expected. The anger tells him to set his mouth in a stubborn line, to glare and to feed the fire of self-righteousness inside of him that he now realizes he had begun to doubt a long time ago.

But Ikael is not angry with him. He is just sad, and quiet, and disappointed.

Thancred tells himself it is because he has no energy to argue. Ikael has a natural dislike of conflict, and his nature as a people-pleaser has, ironically, landed him in not a few spots of trouble. Thancred ignores the niggling voice at the back of his mind that tells him that Ikael has never been afraid to tell him off before. They have gotten into few fights, as friends go, and very rarely nasty ones, although the burn of those lasts long after apologies have been sniffled (usually by Ikael) and tears have been shed (again, usually by Ikael). So Thancred knows when Ikael has something he wishes to say, and he knows that when he does, it usually isn’t very long before he goes and says it.

And he has been quiet.

After they depart from Nabaath Areng, Thancred finds out why. Ikael pulls out his journal—he has _written it down—_and, giving Thancred a ridiculous, clumsy little smile, proceeds to flay the skin off his bones. By the time he is finished, the rest of the Scions are awkwardly trailing much too far behind to be practical, the newly-dubbed Ryne is hiding behind them, and Thancred, in his raw and vulnerable state, feels as if his stomach has sunk down through the mines to lay with the Lightwarden they have just slain.

Ikael’s face gentles, and he goes to squeeze his arm around Thancred's shoulders. “You had better be kinder to her now,” he says softly, and it is a _threat_.

Thancred doesn’t dare look him in the eye. He chokes out, voice catching just barely, “I will.”

It is not… simply Ikael telling him off for practically everything he has done in these past few weeks that has set him so off-kilter. It is the awareness that he had smiled at Thancred oh-so-kindly just bells before, had listened and leaned and stood close to him in heart as he had talked about Minfilia, open and honest. Thancred is terrified, in some small, stricken shard of his chest, that Ikael’s kindness, seemingly absolute and staunch as the ground beneath their feet, had been false. 

He feels fingers curl under his chin. He looks up, prepared for the worst, and sees—that Ikael’s gaze is… clear. Still tired, still a little sad, but the heavy weight of disappointment that had drug Thancred down like a lead weight every time they had looked at one another is all but gone.

“Hey,” Ikael says, and for the first time in a while, he sounds as if he believes what he is saying. “It’s okay. It’s over now.”

His hands creep around Thancred. Thancred clenches his jaw and claps an arm over his back, tugging him into the embrace he wants to give. Whether it is for Ikael, himself, or the both of them he does not know, but he closes his eyes and breathes in the offered comfort regardless. It does not matter.

They have finally slotted back together.

~*~

“I am sorry,” Ikael says. It is weeks later. Although his expression is simple and a little blank, his eyes are seeped in regret, a compassion lingering in the back of them that comes from nowhere and nothing.

Thancred tilts his head. “I am not really that upset about you taking the last pancake, you know,” he says lightly, but he notes with a silent question the lack of levity in Ikael's voice, and wonders.

Ikael’s eyes crinkle into a hesitant smile. “I-I mean, about… getting mad at you. A-about Ryne, you know. Um.” He ducks his head, pulling at an ear in a now familiar nervous gesture. “Way back a-at Ahm—at Ahm Areng.”

He clears his throat quickly. Thancred gives his amaro one last pat before tossing it a treat, which it snatches out of the air. It bleats at him as he walks over to Ikael.

“I… cannot say I did not deserve it,” he admits, smiling lightly to show he is not upset. “It was… ah… _interesting_ that you chose that particular moment to strip me of all my armour and drown me in my own words, but it was… warranted.”

A faint twinkle sparks in Ikael’s eye. “Your metaphors are getting less sexual than I remember,” he says. Thancred snorts.

“I was actually about to say, ‘and beat me while I was naked,’ but I didn’t want this conversation to take a turn for the inane prematurely,” he replies. “Alas.”

Ikael winks. “Alas,” he repeats, tapping the bridge of his nose. Thancred rolls his eyes, but they have effectively lightened the mood, and despite the inanity, he is grateful.

“I mean it, though, Ikael,” he reassures through their smiles. “I… am thankful. It would be another thing had you yelled and then never spoken to me again, but,” His eyes dart away before he gives himself a mental kick and straightens them out again, “You did not.”

Ikael gives him a slanted smile. “Do you want a hug?” he asks honestly.

Thancred considers, and then nods. Ikael’s eyes lift in warmth before he engulfs Thancred in a strong embrace. He is eating better now, Thancred thinks as he breathes in the scents of amaro and fresh laundry and something baked and sweet. Good. He had _better_ be taking care of himself now that he is with Thancred and Ryne, or it is off to Y'shtola and her lectures he will go.

Ikael gives him one last squeeze before pulling back, and Thancred only has to tilt his face to the side to get a kiss on the cheek. Warmth spurts in his chest, sudden and rushing like a fountain. Before he can think much of it, he ducks forwards and returns the gesture.

Ikael’s eyes turn soft. “_Oh_,” he says. He reaches up to cup Thancred's cheek. “You are very sweet, lovely. Thank you. Now come on—Buttercup is getting impatient.”

He claps Thancred enthusiastically on the arse before trotting over to his amaro, beginning his usual routine of cooing and cawing at it before he climbs on. Thancred shakes his head internally, but lets a smile leak through.

Some things, thankfully, do not change.

~*~

**Author's Note:**

> hope you liked this ! feel free to tell me what you think <3


End file.
